affected to remember the facts,--and believed by the young, whose imagination supplied all the defects of memory, and pictured to them an interesting beauty, with her children hanging about her, embarking, with a heretic husband, for a distant country, and sadly bidding farewell to the land and the religion of her fathers. “Now, while these things were talked of at Seville, Guzman fell sick, and was given over by the physicians, whom with considerable reluctance he had suffered to be called in. “In the progress of his illness, whether nature revisited a heart she long appeared to have deserted,--or whether he conceived that the hand of a relative might be a more grateful support to his dying head than that of a rapacious and mercenary menial,--or whether his resentful feelings burnt faintly at the expected approach of death, as artificial fires wax dim at the appearance of morning;--so it was, that Guzman in his illness bethought himself of his sister and her family,--sent off, at a considerable expence, an express to that part of Germany where she resided, to invite her to return and be reconciled to him,--and prayed devoutly that he might be permitted to survive till he could breathe his last amid the arms of her and her children. Moreover, there was a report at this time, in which the hearers probably took more interest than in any thing that related merely to the life or death of Guzman,--and this was, that he had rescinded his former will, and sent for a notary, with whom, in spite of his apparent debility, he remained locked up for some hours, dictating in a tone which, however clear to the notary, did not leave one distinct impression of sound on the ears that were strained, even to an agony of listening, at the double-locked door of his chamber. “All Guzman’s friends had endeavoured to dissuade him from making this exertion, which, they assured him, would only hasten his dissolution. But to their surprise, and doubtless their delight, from the moment his will was made, Guzman’s health began to amend,--and in less than a week he began to walk about his chamber, and calculate what time it might take an express to reach Germany, and how soon he might expect intelligence from his family. “Some months had passed away, and the priests took advantage of the interval to get about Guzman. But after exhausting every effort of ingenuity,--after plying him powerfully but unavailingly on the side of conscience, of duty, of fear, and of religion,--they began to understand their interest, and change their battery. And finding that the settled purpose of Guzman’s soul was not to be changed, and that he was determined on recalling his sister and her family to Spain, they contented themselves with requiring that he should have no communication with the heretic family, except through them,--and never see his sister or her children unless they were witnesses to the interview.